


Anticipating Home

by MichelleDV



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M, You Know It's True, and i had to make it make sense, don't fight me on this, since it really didn't, that 9 months thing was absolute crap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26485021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MichelleDV/pseuds/MichelleDV
Summary: Crane's musings over why he left, his return, and Abbie <3
Relationships: Ichabod Crane & Abbie Mills, Ichabod Crane/Abbie Mills
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	Anticipating Home

He hadn’t expected to disappear for nine months, and when he’d found the prophetic tablet—a description of he and Abbie carved into stone together—and realized how long he’d stayed away, everything in him screamed for him to return to her with the utmost haste. Sadly, the airline system didn’t feel his compulsion, and it took three more days to get a flight back home.

_Home_ … He contemplated the word, wondering how this era, the strange land that he’d once been so familiar with but which now confounded him at almost every moment , and a woman he’d met not three years ago could feel so comforting, even now, separated by nearly a year’s worth of time and an ocean.

He’d run, fast and far, back to his family of origin, seeking roots, something to ground him in the here and now. All he’d found there was Abbie. Proof positive that _she_ grounded him, tethered him to that place and this time. And finally he’d stopped running.

He felt itchy with the desire to get back.

The reasons he’d left no longer applied, not with this new prophecy in hand and certainly not with the emotions raging in him that he’d tamped down for so long now they felt like a familiar weight upon his heart.

How he missed Abbie so! The thought of finally seeing her now that he’d come to terms with all that’d happened made his heart race—followed by a drop in his stomach. Would she even be happy to see him? He’d disappeared without a veritable word. And after everything she’d done for him…

But it was because of him, because of his wife and his son that her life had been upended. She’d intended to go places, to become a successful federal agent, when he’d come crawling out of his grave.

She hadn’t deserved the cessation of her life, her dreams, her career that his awakening had caused. More than that, she didn’t deserve the suffering she'd endured: the decline of her mother, the loss of Corbin, the travesty of what’d happened to Frank and his family, the stalling out of her career, the heartache of everything they'd suffered, the loss of innocence she’d had before realizing her childhood trauma in the woods was only the beginning of the things that would haunt and hunt her. She’d spent time in purgatory, for Heaven's sake. Because of him and those from his centuries' old life.   
  
No, she didn't deserve any of it.  
  
But that's not why he'd left. At least…it wasn't the only reason. Yes, he’d felt unmoored and confused after the deaths of Katrina and Henry—he’d be a purgatorial mutant to not be disoriented--and he’d needed time to come to terms with all that'd happened since he'd awoken. After all, one could hardly blame him for needing time to accept he'd slept through 250 years of history. Add to that the fact that he'd unwittingly married a powerful witch who'd borne him one of the most prolific figures of the apocalypse and...well, anyone could see how screwed up he’d become.  
  
But more than that, more than losing every tie he'd had to his old life, more than the loss of the family he would never have chosen had he had all the facts up front, he'd felt miserable—like a brigand, if he were being honest—for the fact that he _didn’t_ mourn them more. Over the past several months, he'd realized he'd stuck with Katrina and all of her ills and shortcomings more from a wretched sense of Purtian duty than because he’d really wanted a life with her.   
  
He had once...back in their time. Back then he was enamored, nearly knocked off his feet, most particularly when she'd revealed her feelings for him. He'd never been in love before Katrina. And he _had_ been in love. But finding himself in a new era, fighting a different kind of war, traipsing through the history of his first life....it had all felt so astounding and incomprehensible. And wonderful. He'd never expected Katrina to be a part of it—or the cause of it, Heaven knew—and he wasn't entirely surprised that she hadn't acclimated and adapted the way he had. But he had been surprised at how ill-fitting she felt to _him_. He'd stuck by her though, keeping his marriage vow, trying to build a relationship in a situation he never could’ve known was on the horizon when taking that vow, and suppressing how he really felt: unsure that they could survive in this century together. And altogether sure it was more of a burden to try than to cut ties with her. But that went against everything he stood for: loyalty, integrity, fidelity, morality.   
  
And so he'd stayed. Against his better judgment and in direct opposition to his heartfelt desires, he'd remained faithful (if not in heart, then in practice)until she put everything he cared most for on the line.  
  
And that was the real kicker, the final nail in the unironic coffin of their marriage: by choosing her path—Henry and his evils over all else—she’d forced him to end it—unequivocally—with her. For the world, yes. Because he was a Witness with a capital W, yes. But mostly because of Abbie. He’d had to. To save her.  
  
That single moment in time--thrusting the knife into all he'd known before-- sealed his fate, one riddled with abject guilt and shame.  
  
 _That’s_ what had driven him away. And coward that he was, he’d let Abbie believe it was the loss of Katrina and his apostate son that’d compelled him.  
  
He couldn't tell Abbie he felt he'd riven her life into a Before and an After the way that Katrina had divided his—he was her very own warlock, an unexpected black-magic curse she couldn't shake off. He couldn't explain that he'd desperately desired to believe that Henry could change but didn't believe it an actual possibility, regardless of what Katrina said, because of the depths of his deceit and corruption. He couldn't describe that he'd loved Katrina but hadn't been in love with her for some time now, since nearly the moment he'd gotten her back; it’s why he hadn’t re-consummated their marriage once the cabin had become her home. He didn't know if he could voice that he regretted the act of killing of Katrina more than the loss of her now that she'd thrown her lot in with the devil and against everything he’d always believed they’d stood for. And he knew he couldn't begin to explain the depth of guilt that flooded him mere days after their deaths over the fact that he _didn’t_ feel more grief, instead feeling relieved that the horrors they planned to visit upon the world wouldn’t actually occur and infinitely grateful that Abbie still lived.

She’d been more than by his side throughout it all; she’d crawled up into his heart, taken up residence there, and settled in comfortably for the duration, and he’d never be able to expel her.

Not that he desired to do so. He couldn’t begin to define the ways he felt about his Lieutenant.   
  
She’d stayed true to him throughout the shambles of his 21st century life, and done so with poise and patience. Oh, Abbie was patient—only looking back now did he realize what that must’ve cost her, to have her motives undermined, her decisions questioned, her position delegated to second place by the very person who'd put them in the predicament they fought against at every turn and with every drawn breath. Yes, she'd been patient. And not only with Katrina, his relationship with her, and his divided attentions.   
  
She'd been exceedingly patient with him. Explaining his New World with kindness and gentility and a healthy dose of good-natured ribbing, providing for him, protecting him, and confiding in him. Believing him. Believing _in_ him. He wouldn't trade that for anything.   
  
But he had thrown it away.  
  
Shamefully, he'd let guilt over his real feelings hold sway, and he'd run. The number of times he’d thumbed out a text to her only to erase it, scrolled to her name, his thumb hovering over ‘Send,’ only to suddenly put the phone away from him as if it might strike him, the words he’d saved up to tell her, the dreams she’d starred in as his companion…these were as numerous as the miles he’d put between them.

But no longer. He’d landed in America, breathing a deep sigh of relief at the feeling of ease (though coupled with anxiousness at having to face her after all this time running) that rose up in him just knowing they existed on the same continent again.

He’d walked briskly through the airport only to have to wait in the long queue at customs. He’d fidgeted, drumming his hands together or against his thighs, impatiently waiting his turn. His blood zinged through his veins with apprehension about and in anticipation of seeing Abbie again. He had so many things to tell her, so much to apologize for. He could only hope she’d missed him even a fraction of the amount he’d missed seeing her every day, verbally sparring with her, confiding in her, hugging her.

She just had to hear him out.

But then the infernal police had seized him because of the stone, and after days of his ranting and their shuffling of him through the convoluted system, here he sat, across the table from the man who would talk to Abbie on his behalf. Not at all the best way to make his entrance, but he wasn’t free to decide the details of their reunion at the moment.

“It’s ringing,” the man informed him.

His heart jumped into his throat. Abbie would be here soon. He desired nothing else on this earth as much as the presence of the woman who’d answer on the other end of the line.

“She’ll answer,” he assured, though he spoke to himself more than his captor. “She’ll be here soon.”


End file.
